Timing is Everything

Part of the text of the lecture by John McCormick for the Future Moves 3 workshop at DEAF00.

The difference in the time it takes for sound to reach one
ear or the other aids in rendering a 3 dimensional view
of our environment, the objects and people around us, where
they are positioned in relationship to us, and us to them,
the path of danger approaching, the source of a kookaburra.
A similar view may be taken to light falling upon the retinas.
The differences in reflected light reaching the eyes cues
most of us in the formation of a stereoscopic visual representation
of our immediate landscape, giving added perception of depth
and the relationship of the other participants in our environment.
As sensations travel across nerve endings we can conjure
a picture of water trickling down our back, a breeze across
our face, breath entering the nostrils and filling the lungs.
The tracking of time through our senses is one means of
engaging with our waking existence. The brain is able to
synthesise vast amounts of sensorial input, sifting out
that deemed non-essential, filtering these through a mask
of experience to arrive at a personal rendition of that
moment.

In the electronically mediated sonic environment
that is the telephone conversation many of the normal cues
exchanged in a face to face conversation are missing or
altered. The prompts that govern whose turn it is to speak
are carried through a slightly different kind of silence
or intonation. Similarly in the videoconferenced performance
many of the normal cues for interaction are changed. The
timing of action may be affected by the inability of the
electronic medium to cater to some senses, requiring greater
dependancy on other senses in order to communicate. In shared
network performance environments, such as in the performance
Escape Velocity, the interaction between performers is mediated
largely through the shared screen space. The performers
are not only waiting to see how their counterparts are inhabiting
the shared space, they are also having to note their own
inhabitation and juxtaposition within the shared environment.
This role of being both performer within the work and simultaneously
viewing oneself from an external position (watching yourself
on screen to see how you fit in) in order to guage avenues
for proceeding can be both disorienting and extremely engaging.

Whilst you could say that the representation of yourself
and your counterparts in the shared network environment
are only electronic proxies for the real people, and rather
pared back versions at that, it seems incredibly easy to
attribute the kinds of emotional and physical responses
to that electronic represenation that one would experience
in face to face dialogue. (For me anyway) it seems inately
desirable to make as full a picture of the people engaged
in the environment as possibleand seems to extend the experience
beyond the range of the senses seemingly directly negotiating
the interplay. Strong physical and emotional responses to
the interaction with self and others are not uncommon.

The
senses and their synthesising agents work fast. The kinds
of delays inherent in many network environments allow the
use of different strategies to cope. And the delays are
not all the same. In Escape Velocity the two dancers share
the same mediated space, yet the delays they encounter are
many and varied. The compositing of the dancers into the
shared space occurs largely at one (this) end. The dancer
at this end sees herself on screen almost immediately and
takes some time to note orientations. The dancer at the
other (that) end is delayed in their appearance at this
end to the degree of the lag in transmission medium. However
while the dancer at that end is delayed in reaching this
end for appraisal and reaction by the dancer at this end,
the dancer at that end must wait doubly long for her own
image to return along with the image of her counterpart
if she wishes to proceed based on the accrued new juxtapositions.
Add to this the variable that the representations are being
governed by two other humans scrutinising your actions from
behind video cameras, making their own autonomous decisions
regarding your represenation and you have to wait and see
how they are going to portray you to the world.

What
strategies are available for negotiating these spaces with
new distances inherent in them? The fm-tt workshops will
be a great place to explore such. One of my favourites is
prediction. It can be very nice to have the opportunity
to predict the future.

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John McCormick works
mainly with the company in space. They are engaged in a
new perfomance, Incarnate, a shared performance environment
between Melbourne Australia (Dancehouse) and Hong Kong (HK
arts Centre). The performance begins on November 30 2000.
They will be performing a linked version of Escape Velocity
between Melbourne and Monaco for MDDF2 on December 13 and
14 2000. Also in December will be a responsive internet
performance, This Here Out There. In 2001 CIS will be performing
Dream? A networked performance animation work (networked
motion capture) linking Florida State U and the Interactive
Information Institute in Melbourne, as well as a new movememt
opera, Architecture of Biography to be performed at the
Melbourne Festival 2001.